A New Trading Partner, and Expo Goods from an Old Friend

Tonight's double dip trade post actually gets me caught up on incoming trade material for what feels like the first time in months.  There's a little bit of everything here, but let's start with some 2015 Topps.

I've yet to complete Series 1, Series 2 or Update so far this year though I hope to eventually finish all three.  I'm quite a bit closer on Series 1 now thanks to Jimmy of S.Mack Talk. 

Jimmy claimed a few Gold parallels from my box of Update, and sent a really nice PWE in return.  In fact, it was stuffed with so many cards that it required two stamps!  There were over a dozen Series 1 cards I needed alone, though I'll stick to showing these two in this post.

Jimmy scored some major bonus points with me...

...for increasing my Xander Bogaerts collection by two cards with this envelope.

He also hit on a few junk wax classic sets that I can't believe I still need cards from, yet I do.

A nice quartet from 1992 Fleer Ultra.  I would say the 1991 to 1992 Fleer Ultra sets might represent one of the best ever one year improvements in design by any company.

One from the '93 set as well.  Thanks for the great package Jimmy, I hope we can trade again down the line!

The other package I finally found the time to scan today is from one of my oldest trading partners, the ever-generous Douglas from Sportcards from the Dollar Store. 

Those of you that have traded with Douglas before know that he puts together some of the best trade packages out there.  This one was chock full of hockey greatness from the big Expo show.

It's really cool that Douglas shops for others when he's at a show, and it's something he actually has inspired me to start doing as well.  It's to the point now where I usually split my show purchases about 50/50 in terms of what I keep for myself and what I pick up for others.

This particular batch featured a giant stack of '80-81 O-Pee-Chee Whalers.  Every single one that was on my want list as a matter of fact!

1980-81 Topps always drove me nuts because, while it was the same design you see here with O-Pee-Chee, they covered the player name with a black rub-off substance like you see on a scratch ticket.  Terrible idea, but these O-Pee-Chee cards suffered no such fate thankfully.

This All-Star subset card of HOFer Mark Howe is easily my favorite of this impressive bunch.  I wish they had gone with this "stick shooting the puck" motif for the entire set.  If that had been the case this may have turned out to be one of my all-time favorite hockey sets.  What might have been...

Mike Rogers here took a real beating on one corner, but those sort of things don't bother me in the least on cards this old.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if I never got around to upgrading this copy.

Here's the other Mark Howe from the set.

Dave Keon looks like a 75-year-old leprechaun on this one.

The classic "Now with..." designation.  Mike looks a little dejected here, almost like he's just learned that he's been traded to the Whalers.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about the best part of old school hockey cards, the cartoons!

I picked out just my favorite pair to show here, the first paying tribute to what I still think is one of the most impressive athletic feats I've ever heard of.  It seems unbelievable that Gordie Howe played an NHL season at age 51, but it happened!

The other cartoon I'll show here reminds us that the Whalers franchise originally started in Boston (at the very beginning of their WHA days), something I'm willing to bet a lot of hockey fans aren't aware of.

There was some great bonus material that accompanied the '80-81 OPCs.

A nice trio of Bruins there, two of which are still with the team, one whose career came to a tragic end.

Here's an awesome '75-76 O-Pee-Chee WHA card of winger Ron Climie.  This might be the best design of any of the '70s WHA sets.  The timing on this is perfect too, as I am going to put a collecting emphasis on these very sets in 2016.

Sometimes I think Douglas can read my mind.  I had this card in my COMC cart being saved for Black Friday weekend, felt pretty nice to remove it and use those funds on something else.  A great card with an image I don't see used too often.  There are actually a ton of these Authentic Moments cards from the past few years of SP Authentic that I think are fantastic.

Final card of the package, and this post.  I was really blown away at this point.  I had a couple of in person signed Sidorkiewicz cards, but this is my first authentic, certified signature.  I love the card too, just perfect that it prominently features Peter's Cooper "mask".

I said that was the final card of the post, and that wasn't a lie, but I do have one more item to show:

How cool is that?!?!  I'm guessing this is a replica, but it's the exact patch that was worn by the Whalers during the 1982 season.  Extra cool for me since this is also the year I was born.

Douglas, you've really outdone yourself with this one.  I definitely need to get another package off to you ASAP.  Thank you!!!